Garlic is a natural product that is often used as alternative to curing hypertension. Garlic contains over 200 chemical components, including allicin to reduce blood pressure.
Garlic as hypertension drug, however, is not suggested to pregnant women because allicin has blood pressure reduction mechanism like that of hypertension drugs of ACE Inhibitor.
“ACE Inhibitor drugs are very hazardous if consumed by pregnant women because they have the teratogenic effect to the foetus. This may induce foetal growth failure, disorder, abnormal growth of cells during pregnancy that can damage the embryo,” said Natania Ayu Sandy, UGM Pharmacy student on Wednesday (17/7) atUGM.
She conducted research with Theresia Shinta W and Dion Adiriesta Dewananda on mating rats that are treated with garlic extract for 14 days. The result showed changes that led to teratogenesis effect.
Natania explained this was obtained after observation of macropathology, rontgen, and electron microscope scanning to confirm the occurrence of teratogenic effect. “The result show garlic extract as anti-hypertension for pregnant women may risk the foetus. Further research is however required to support this research,” she concluded.
The research was done in Student Creativity Programme UGM 2019 that is funded by Research, Technology and Higher Education Ministry.